All Shook Up: the Inverness Earthquake, 1816

In January 2013, an earthquake measuring 3.5 on the Richter scale was recorded in Scotland, centred on Glenuig, 25 miles west of Fort William. This seems an unusual event but the British Geological Survey (BGS) reports that around 400 earthquakes are detected in the British Isles each year - although only 10% of them are strong enough to be felt by those living close to the epicentre.

Before the BGS was established, the recording and investigation of earthquakes in the British Isles was generally left in the hands of interested amateurs. Evidence of individual earthquakes can therefore often be found in collections of family papers.

In Scotland most earthquakes have occurred on the west coast, with additional centres of activity near the Great Glen and a small area surrounding Comrie in Perthshire. Experts suggest that this pattern of seismicity may have been influenced by the distribution of ice during the last glaciation.

Amongst the papers deposited in the National Records of Scotland in the 1930s there is a single letter relating to the Inverness earthquake which occurred during the night of the 16 August 1816. Groome’s Gazetteer describes the earthquake in Inverness as a smart shock of earthquake, which threw down the chimney pots of many houses, twisted the old steeple, and set the bells a-ringing.

Source 1: The twisted steeple, 1816

The steeple mentioned is a 45m high spire designed and built by William Sibbald and Alexander Laing in 1791 as part of a new courthouse and prison in Inverness, built between 1787 and 1789. In the aftermath of the earthquake Provost Grant of Inverness asked the architect, James Gillespie Graham, for his advice on repairing the steeple. The letter below is James Gillespie’s reply. The steeple was finally restored by Hugh Miller from Cromarty in 1828.

(National Records of Scotland reference: GD23/6/547)

Transcript

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Inverness 26 Aug[us]t 1816

Sir,

At your request I have this
day inspected the top of your Spire which has
been lately affected by the Shock of Earthquake,
and so far as I could discover, it appears to me
to have been moved three or ffour inches upon
but not raised from its bed. From this circum-
stance and the building appearing to stand
perpendicular it evidently proves to me that no
danger may be apprehended – Indeed I reckon
the Building equally secure as when first erected,
and should be extremely sorry to ffind that any
mistaken apprehension would induce the
magistrates to restore it to its former position
thus

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thus destroying the present picturesque effect
which, if allowed to remain, would be
the subject of Conversation and the
Wonder of ages to come.

I am Sir

your mo[st] ob[edien]t Serv[an]t

Ja[me]s Gillespie

(National Records of Scotland reference: GD23/6/547)

Source 2: Earthquake shocks recorded in Scotland, August 1816

David Milne was an amateur seismologist in the 19th century who was seeking to understand the causes of earthquakes. He collected information from eye-witnesses and written reports of various earthquakes, which he published in Notices of Earthquake-shocks felt in Great Britain, and especially in Scotland, with inferences suggested by these notices as to the causes of these shocks in the Edinburgh New Philosophical Journal, July 1841.

The following extract from his article contains the reports which David Milne collected relating to the Inverness earthquake. These describe the damage caused by the earthquake shock and the extent of the shockwaves, which were felt far beyond Inverness itself.

(National Records of Scotland reference: GD267/8/2/7)

Transcription

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Aug 6. Perth at 10h 45 P.M. Dunkeld, Carse of Gowrie, Strathearn.
Aug 10. Inverness, 10h 45 P.M.; Ross, Forres, Moray, Banff, Aberdeen, Montrose, Forfar, Wick, Loch Lochy. Scarcely felt in Edinburgh, and on west coast of Ross-shire. At Fraserburgh, beds heaved and rocked; and the noise there was like a heavy weight sliding down house-roof. Night hazy and calm. Shock everywhere simultaneous. Reached the Pentland Firth on north, and Coldstream on south, so that it affected all Scotland. It was, however, chiefly felt between the Tay and Pentland Firth. Direction of concussion from NW. to SE. Greatest violence was under town of Inverness, as its centre. ‘The fabric of the whole building’ (in which Sir Thomas D. Lauder was) ‘shook from its foundation; and the floor and the chair on which I sat, were several times moved powerfully up and down in quick succession, whilst, along with this vertical motion, I felt the chair rapidly agitated horizontally

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backwards and forwards, as if some Herculean person had taken it up with both hands from behind, and shaken it violently. Of this compound motion I was perfectly sensible.

1816.
Aug. 13. The barometer at Relugas, which was about 29.20, did not seem to have been affected. Though the whole summer had been very wet and stormy, the previous day, and particularly the evening, was fine and still. The shock was followed by the same stillness. The following morning was calm, but gloomy; and a thick rain came on, which continued to fall incessantly for above sixty hours, and indeed for the next month there was hardly any fair weather.

A man travelling on foot, in the mountains south of Relugas, gave the following account. He was first alarmed by a sudden and tremendous noise as of a rushing wind, which came sweeping up the hills like a roar of water. This was instantly followed by the rumbling sound, or rhombo, - and the ground was then sensibly heaved up and down under his feet. Next morning I examined in my own neighbourhood, everywhere, the surface of the ground, but could not discern the slightest vestige of a crack. Dogs howled, and poultry on the roost manifested much dismay. A horse started with his rider, and would not move forward. At Inverness some stones were thrown from the tops of houses across the street. The spire of the county jail was rent through, and the part above the rent was twisted round several inches; - as the direction of the undulation was towards the SE., the upper part was left behind. The mason-lodge was rent from top to bottom, and the north stalk of the chimney partly thrown down.

A slighter shock was felt about half an hour afterwards.

At Montrose, a vivid flash of lightning was observed to follow after the shock. At Dunkeld, a small meteor was seen to pass from E. to W. just about the time of the earthquake. There the houses were much shaken.

Immediately after the shock commenced, I felt a kind of faintishness, which did not leave me for two hours. The same felt by others. I know persons who have the same feeling during a thunder-storm. This faintish feeling was in some persons attended by a very slight degree of sickness.

All alluvial positions were more convulsed, than more stable formations in their close vicinity.

Such a rainy season as the past, has hardly been remembered by anyone.

At the Kessock-Ferry, the ferrymen felt their boat heaved suddenly and rapidly, as if projected over two or three large waves. The night and sea were calm.

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Notes from Newspapers

1816. At Inverness the shock lasted 20”. The motion came from the N. and W., whereby the stones in the upper part of the spire were thrown to NW. Stones on chimney-pots were also thrown to NW.

At Montrose, the bells rang, and bed-curtains moved as if by wind. The weather on the preceding day was cold and stormy from the north; but on the evening of the earthquake, it was uncommonly mild and calm. It has been succeeded by a tempest of wind and rain from NE.

The shock felt at Perth and Dunkeld. The noise seemed to die away to the west. At Perth there were two shocks separated by half a minute, and there seemed to be a forward and then a backward motion of the earth.

Excessive and long-continued rains had fallen in north of Scotland, for some months previous to earthquake.

The effects of this earthquake were perceived along the east coasts, but not further south than the Tay, and not further west than Loch Lochy. This earthquake said to have been felt, though very slightly, in Edinburgh and Leith. – (G. Mag. V. lxxxvi. Part 2d, p.269; and Annals of Philos., 1816-7.)

Aug. 19 and 20. Shocks on both days in Inverness and neighbourhood.
Sept. 42. Mr Gilfillan of Comrie states that there was an uncommon phenomenon in the air, - a large luminous body, bent like a crescent, which stretched itself over the heavens.